Starvation Diet

While I was pregnant with the girls, I had a lot of time to read up on all the latest parenting techniques among other things, and I discovered something called “attachment parenting”. I recommend “The Baby Book” by Dr. William Sears (his website is www.askdrsears.com ). One of the main things in attachment parenting is to not let the child(ren) ‘cry it out’, but to be attentive to their needs.

I thought this sounded like a grand idea and I then consulted our local expert on touchy-feely parenting techniques: Brian the diaper guy. (www.diaper-duty.com ) Brian has raised two kids this way and he told me all about the many ways this has had a positive effect on his kids’ development. I was very impressed and decided that this would be the way we would raise our twins, albeit with a few alterations, because no way was I going to be wearing TWO babies in a sling! Not unless I had a forklift handy to heft all three of us around.

Then came the opposition. My husband got it at work, we even got it from other members of our church. “You’ll spoil the girls,” and “They’re just manipulating you.”

Yes, of course, (thwacks self on head) how could I have possibly missed it? Babies are born devious and manipulative! They are so conscious on every level and have such control over themselves that they deliberately with malice aforethought play us adults like the meat puppets we are to them!

We’ve got to put these machiavellian little creatures in a maximum security penitentiary right now before they get access to weapons of mass destruction and life as we know it will end!

I mean, look at how well humanity has turned out with the tried and true method of emotional neglect: we’ve got nifty wars, violent crime, pandemic poverty, rampant corruption in every sector of world society! Hmm, yes these are results to be envied and emulated!

I’ll use a technical term here: “phooey”.

Tell me, if a baby was hungry and she was crying to let you know her stomach was empty. Would you say she was being manipulative and devious? Would it be spoiling to feed a hungry baby?

Starve the body or starve the heart and soul. Something dies if you do either one.

I would no more deprive my kids of food than I would deprive their hearts of love.

Maybe if people were less worried about “spoiling” kids and tried feeding their starving hearts, we’d have a nicer world to live in.